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SinK

05-29-2007, 04:56 PM Post subject: A different strategic aproach.

#1 (permalink)

Join Date: Apr 2007

Location: Guernsey

Posts: 26

I'm fairly new to FTR and so this is my first few words of wisdom, do with them what you will:

I played online poker for the first time in ages, (I got one of those free $50 no deposit things at PartyPoker go to www.pokerstrategy.org.uk cite me as your referer TheSink_

) and because all my live games are NLHold'em and occasionally PLO (also because my BR is so small) I decided I'd give limit another go just for kicks.

QUICK BRAG THEN REAL CONTENT WOOHOO: And I owned, 1K hands three tabling in the last 24hrs with earnings of ~12BB/100 hands (yeah, yeah positive variance, micro-limits blah blah blah) at .10/.20 during which I sat at give or take 15 different tables, but what struck me was a) the number of German players at PartyPoker and b) how much folding was happening at such a low limit game. The first thing every little poker player is taught when he first picks up a pack of cards is that the micro-limit games are full of loose-passive opponents, in particular they are warned that limit games, because of their small bet sizes compared to the pot will be absolutely chock-a-block with calling stations. And from this we are tought the TAG style that we all know and love, ahem. We are shown a chart with starting hands and told to raise with the top 15% limp with SCs and PPs in position and fold the rest. This is not so.

Micro-limit players are made up of BR building pros in the making, recreational players and gamblers, all of which treat their virtual chips like gold, yes its only 20 cents but these people don't like to loose. Secondly the newer breed of players while overvalueing TPTK realise that anything worse than that is pretty much a rag hand ie most players are WEAK-TIGHT. And how do we exploit this, like so:
(I may write these like they are fact but that is because currently I believe them, comments and discussion are welcome. I may be wrong.)
THE FOLLOWING APPLY TO GAMES WHERE MOST FLOPS ARE SEEN WITH LESS THAN 5 PLAYERS.
1. NEVER, EVER limp. Not with SCs, not with low pocket pairs if its good enough to play its good enough to raise.
2. Open up your starting ranges, I play J7os from 2nd position (I can see this being a contentious point) and i have three bet 23os in position. I play 45%ish of my hands outside the blinds, raising all the time.
2b. If its folded to you in MP or have one limper or less in LP then raise no matter what two cards you are holding.
[These 2 rules are to put you in the position to steal the blinds, thin the feild, and set you up to steal pots by maintaining the initiative.]
3. Continuation bet every flop (this creates a strange style of play where you actually want to be OOP, at micro-stakes most players are bad enough that any info they do give you will not be hugely helpful) no matter what comes off. This is more situational than it sounds but I c-bet 98% of the time. The pre-flop raises make this a profitable play most of the time anyways. If it doesn't win you the pot right there (as will happen 60%of the time) it should thin the field. If your raised then you have to consider your position, but I generally re-re-raise if I hit any part of the flop and have any over card. Failing that you can consider calling, but only if you have good reason to; like, say you plan to:
4. Continuation bet the turn. Again situational but I, the degeneratethat I am, do it pretty much all the time and 100% of the time if I was only called by 1-2 players.
5.Feel free to bet the river with most hands, you made it this far, with marginal hands its a value bet and with nothing its a bluff (BTW always bluff the river if the flop contained a flush draw or a likely straight draw which didn't get filled it works enouygh times that with the large pot you've built it will be profitable in the long run)

[I would like to emphasise this will only works in relatively tight games, and is based on my experiences over a small sample size online, but I can also tell you its alot more fun to go after pots than to wait for them to fall into your lap.]

The benefits of this style are obvious, you can consistently pull down pots with meagre holdings, and because you are almost always putting moves on ppl its easy to save a few bets when they play back by just folding. And when you do get a hand you'll find that if someone else hits something you will find yourslef playing for a big pot, plus your almost always playing you position and your opponents ratehr than your cards.

Just my tu-pennies worth.

P.S. I am contstantly looking to improve, this Maniacal Aproach requires some refining so do comment in particular on counter strategies, situational adaptations and how this would need to change as one worked up the Limits, any obviously -EV plays in the above post (remembering that we intend to steal every pot were in, as far as is possible)

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Nehmer

05-29-2007, 05:11 PM

#2 (permalink)

Full House

Join Date: Oct 2004

Location: Decatur, IL

Posts: 666

If you continue to play such a wide range of hands, you will end up losing or if the play is so incredibly bad at such low stakes, you will at least end up winning a lot less than you would with better starting hand selection. J7os from UTG+2 is -EV. 3-betting 23os without a very very specific read on an opponent you will be isolating is hugely -EV(Even with the perfect read, I dobut that it is +EV by much if anything). Playing 45% of your hands outside the blinds is just plain wrong. Period. Don't let a small run of good cards get you to start thinking it's ok to play poorly. This is assuming you are talking about full ring, if so, I would suggest a VPIP of about 25 at the max. I personally feel that VPIP of about 17 is best for most games, but I could see going up to 25 at micro stakes.

The rest of your points, I don't necessarily disagree with. As you move up in stakes though, you will need to get a bit more picky about your continuation bets.

Sheetah

05-29-2007, 06:53 PM Post subject: Re: A different strategic aproach.

#3 (permalink)

Flush

Join Date: Oct 2006

Posts: 278

Quote:

Originally Posted by SinK

... this creates a strange style of play where you actually want to be OOP ...

I have a big problem with this.
NO, you ALWAYS want to be IN POSITION. PERIOD.
And I personally feel more comfortable c-betting when checked to me then donking blind.

Stagemn

05-29-2007, 07:05 PM

#4 (permalink)

Straight

Join Date: Feb 2006

Posts: 195

You will lose.... a lot playing this way. It's good you had a winning streak for 24 hours, but wait, you're gonna drop so quick playing this way (and much more often), you wont know what happened.

What most micro-limit and newbie players do not realize are the following:

1. POSTITION IS KEY IN EVERY HAND. You go up against a Calling Station or even a Rock and you will be doomed from the start. Try C-Betting from early position on a Calling Station and finding out you're beat in the end. Low Limit Players tend not to fold as often, even when they are beat.

2. CONTROLLING THE POT AND POT ODDS WILL MAKE YOU PLAY BETTER AND OTHERS PLAY BAD. - PF-Raising so many times will often get you in trouble. A calling station will call your PFR only then to have the odds to call you post-flop while your betting your BR away and they have as simple as an overcard draw. Or worse a Axs calls your PFR and then has better odds to call his Flush and/or Ace high draws only to call you down with just a little as Ace high or some small pair.

3. BLUFFING WILL NOT WORK AT SUCH LOW LIMITS. So many people will always make bad calls on thier pot odds that they'll end up pairing up or improving thier hands to outbeat yours. As you get to higher stakes, it may become more profitable as "smarter players" would fold vs. bad pot odds and call with goods. Plus continously 2 or 3 shooting with nothing will catch on quick and everyone will become a calling station against you. Hence, this is why so many fish and calling stations exist in such low limits. They just call-call-call and ended up getting lucky a majority of the time.

TWO LESSONS LEARNED FROM ABOVE:
(1) Last night I was at a 0.25/0.50 SHLHE table for a good 2 hours. About a 1/2 hour into the table, to my right was a Showdown muppet. I mean this guy couldn't win a single hand when it came to showdown. In a matter of 10 minutes, I saw him bluff two seperate hands completely with AQo and AJo high. He just didn't know when to quit. I make a note of it. So about 20 minutres later, I get dealt KQs in the BBs. Everyone folds to him, he PFRs me, from the SBs and I re-raise him. He calls. Out comes the flop. I got a Q on a rainbow board. He checks, I bet, he raises, I call. Turn comes and blank. He bets, I call. River, I get my K. Again he checks, I bet, he raises, I'm like OK... I put him on Kx trying to steal my blinds again. I call. What did he have.... some Jxs hand that had no real outs to beat me from the flop on.
(2) I tried to bluff a KJ hand myself vs. a calling station having the odds with 2 over cards. I PFR, he calls. Flop come uncoordinated, like 9 high, and a rainbow. I C-Bet. He calls. Turn comes blank. I check, he checks. River comes blank again, I check, he bets. I fold having only King high. He shows me all he has is Ace high with a weak kicker. I make a note and move on only to win like almost 1/2 his shortened stack later on thru the session (though it appeared he didn't bluff after that point on much at all).

People catch on, bluffers will go too far to try to make someone fold, only to learn they will be noticed, and in the end will lose more chips then its worth.

To play in a maniacal way and to play as a MANIAC requires two seperate thoughts of thinking. True winning MANIACS win because they know when they're beat and know when to fold, play with postion, and play with an aggression that prevents others from calling with pot odds. They in sense not only control the betting, but the pot odds and the table all at the sametime. They read players to thier right and left and know how to beat them. They pick out thier weaknesses and exploit them.

Oh, btw, last but not least my little thing on low-limit weak tight players:

There are 3 kinds:
(A) Weak Tight Passives - They just fold good hands at the end, and call all day long to showdown with monsters. They slow play anything and everything. They loose allot by playing this way. They fear showdown.
(B) Weak Tight Aggressive Bad Players - They hardly go to show down, but unlike Weak Tight Passives, they get aggressive and end up winning allot of pots by aggression before showdown or losing allot in pots by callers and TAGGs.
(C) Weak Tight Aggressive Good Players - They hardly go to showdown because they are too aggressive, but win lots with the better hand at showdown. They typically have a high W$@SD%. They still end up being loosers because they fold thier hands to often then enough to the second best hands when aggression hits them back.

A word of advise before I leave you to loose your BR quick..... until you know HOW to play the player.... don't play so loose. You're always welcome at my table.... I can use some extra donations to my BR.

jyms

05-29-2007, 07:18 PM

#5 (permalink)

Tilting Mod

Join Date: Feb 2006

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euphoricism

05-29-2007, 07:24 PM

#6 (permalink)

4-of-a-Kind

Join Date: Mar 2005

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I love this thread.

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SinK

05-29-2007, 07:32 PM

#7 (permalink)

Join Date: Apr 2007

Location: Guernsey

Posts: 26

I agree with your point Nehmer that a large majority of hands are -EV when played for value but here the aim is to win as many pots as possible without going to the showdown. This style aims to take advantage of the fact that those who take the game seriously are multi-tabling and are less in tune with your tasble image and the rest are playing the cards they are dealt, cards which, correct me if I'm wrong are going to miss the flop about 65% of the time. Therefore you raise pre-flop to increase the pot size while everyone is playing loose then you take down the pot post-flop when most players don't want to tango with less than top pair. Plus double barrelled c-bets while, not gonna fly with any real players at this level people tend to give you credit if you come out firing on every street. It is important to remember the caveat that this works only against tables where players fold to much. That should explain some of my thinking. The lack of dependancy on reads is based more on the fact that I'm looking at table dynamic rather than individual players. I found I could win easily 1/3 of the pots at some tables just by raising whenever noone made an aggressive move behind me.

Regarding Sheetah's reply what I meant when I said "you want to be OOP" I mean if you are goind to c-bet the flop with nothing if you are OOP then you can get your bet before anyone else acts, this makes sense if you remember that most ppl naturally adopt the gap concept without realising it, so by being OOP you can bet and fold out weak players who ahve better, but marginal, made hands (ie. middle pair) which they might otherwise have bet, causing you to make the fold if you were in position (with nothing). As playing the number of hands that I play you will often have the worst hand being OOP allows you to make use of this. Besides at .1/.2 the play is so poor and erratic v. little info can be gleaned.

I am not even going to try and argue that this kind of indescriminate aggression is going to anything but bust me if I play against calling stations or actual thinking opponents. After all, a good players counter strategy would simply be starting hand selection and the Call Any Bet button.

If a good player gives me the rope I will hang myself. Period. No arguement there. So I guess its lucky I do my bullying at the kiddies poker tables.

I will try and get another 3-6K hands in the next week and check back in. Keep the comments coming. :P

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SinK

05-29-2007, 10:08 PM

#8 (permalink)

Join Date: Apr 2007

Location: Guernsey

Posts: 26

I'm not sure that I made myself clear (this was my first real post), this isn't an overall stratagem, but a specific gear which works at specific tables ie. Weak-tight passives. I wrote this thread because quite frankly standard TAG is not always the most profitable play, LAG and super LAG works too. I am actually quite an experienced player about I was playing 3/6 about a year ago and was an unimaginative but profitable TAG this was just my first online session in a while and I saw the free $50 so I figured it would be challenge to build that into a real bankroll online at limitHE. The reason this strategy worked was not because I lucked out but because I chose my Tables very carefully.

Sorry If that sounded like a rant but I wasn't looking for advice on pot odds and the importance of position but to refine a specific part of my game in a type of poker which I have a good theoretical understanding of but little real practice.

P.S. the only reason the above post is so cheerful is because for some reason all the posts after Sheetahs weren't up.

GRRRRRRRRR!!

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